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Hard Drive Data Recovery

A guy who fixes electronics and computers came into my shop today and was telling me about how can recover data. He once sent out a hard drive that was dead to a service that cost 1500$ and when he got it back he asked how they did it. They told him they increased the voltage comming into the hard drive from 5v to 5.3 and it gives them ONE chance to grab data. He said he figured out how to do it and now can offer the same service for 700$.

A lot would depend on how the drive "died"...............if the control card or motor have burned out, that would do nothing for you IMO.

The reliable method is to have a "clean lab", dismantle the drive and mount the platters on your recovery equipment then copy the data.

Messing with the voltages is a bit like sticking the drive in the deep freeze for 30 minutes, sometimes it may work sometimes not.

If you cannot do someone any good: don't do them any harm....
As long as you did this to one of these, the least of my little ones............you did it unto Me.
What profiteth a man if he gains the entire World at the expense of his immortal soul?

Well yes sometimes drives dont even spin anymore but for the ones that do and you just cannot get data off of them I think it will help? I realised though, I know almost nothing about electronics, rofl.

Particularly "unstoppable copier" (there is now a Linux version as well )

If you cannot do someone any good: don't do them any harm....
As long as you did this to one of these, the least of my little ones............you did it unto Me.
What profiteth a man if he gains the entire World at the expense of his immortal soul?

Thanks, its another freeware tool I added to my collection. As far as the electronics. I cannot use a resistor on the 12v rail because the amount current a hard drive pulls is different depending on its load, correct?

I can honestly say that I have never even thought about it. I have used the freezer and have replaced the control card, otherwise I have been able to use software.

If the system has critical data on it I go for a surge protector, enhanced cooling/ventilation, twin HDDs and a RAID1 array, and a DVD writer. The marginal cost is far less than $1500 or even $700.

You need a rather expensive set up to do professional data recovery, and I don't think that there is that much demand. That is why it is very expensive to get done.

I go for prevention, and then I get to sell something

You will be amazed how "unimportant" data becomes when they find out the price of recovery, and how reasonable and sensible your preventative solution is.

If you cannot do someone any good: don't do them any harm....
As long as you did this to one of these, the least of my little ones............you did it unto Me.
What profiteth a man if he gains the entire World at the expense of his immortal soul?

Correct me if Im wrong, but doesn't the act of opening the HDD expose the platters to too much dust and keep the read/write heads from being able to 'skim' the surface ?

I think this answers your question:

The reliable method is to have a "clean lab", dismantle the drive and mount the platters on your recovery equipment then copy the data.

I think the method of recovering data depends on how the drive was damaged, and to be honest I can't think of to many scenarios where increasing the voltage would help. If the drive still works then it's usually done with software, if it's physically trashed then operating on it in a "clean lab" is done.

The only scenario I can think of where increasing the voltage is an option is if the motor is dying out... And I'm not even sure if that would work...

Call me paranoid but honestly, I think your little friend is simply trying to hide the fact that he's using simple software and confusing his clients by spouting off high tech vocabulary... How else can he convince them to spend 700 dollars on a service that virtually costs him nothing? But hey, he can charge that much because people are willing to spend that much, they just want they're data...